News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Scientists discover hidden patterns of brain activity by zaptheimpaler on Monday September 11, 2017 @10:35AM (#15218793)
The simulation is based on a pretty detailed mapping of how actual rat brains are connected so it should be fairly accurate.
Re:Scientists discover hidden patterns of brain activity by haffi112 on Monday September 11, 2017 @10:54AM (#15218941)
But how should one validate that it actually does something sensible?
Re:Scientists discover hidden patterns of brain activity by semi-extrinsic on Monday September 11, 2017 @11:59AM (#15219486)
One of the simplest known organisms, the worm C. Elegans, has a brain consisting of 302 neurons that we have mapped exactly. (The entire thing is 959 cells.) We still can't simulate it correctly.

A rat's brain is O(10^7) neurons, while a human brain is O(10^11) neurons, as compared to C. Elegans with O(10^2) neurons.

Which is to say, trying to simulate a rat brain while we know we can't simulate C. Elegans is like a prehistoric human claiming he can build an F1 racecar before he's invented the wheel.